


The Final Surrender

by Miss M (missm)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Ghosts, Hallucinations, M/M, Post-Seine, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 21:03:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/pseuds/Miss%20M
Summary: Valjean’s body trembles. “Javert,” he whispers, hollowly. This is too vivid to be a dream. Or is it? He is no longer a trustworthy judge of what is real and what is not.“So you remember. No more escapes for you now, Jean Valjean.”





	The Final Surrender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).

> Inspired _very_ loosely by the prompt of "an AU where Javert, instead of dying, is cursed when he jumps into the Seine"; this was probably not what you had in mind. I hope you like it, though. Thanks so much to I. for the beta.

Without Cosette, the days start to slip away into nothingness.

He is alive in the moments spent with her, in that dark little room without a fire. His existence rearranges itself around those moments; they are like lamp posts in a darkened street, little oases in the desert of his life, glimpses of light in a void. In that void, nothing meaningful exists anymore; there is only loneliness and despair. 

The moments become fewer, rarer. The void is taking over. 

Sometimes he dreams about the sewers. He wakes with a gasp, the stench rank in his nostrils, crumpling under the weight of the city above. In those moments, he feels alive still, his body desperately grasping for air and sunlight, stubbornly clinging to life. And then he remembers the nothingness, the dark, and the void takes over again, drawing him back into indifferent sleep. 

*

One such night, as he shudders awake, the air seems different, tense, as if concealing a presence, heavier and more foreboding than the nightmare that just took its leave. In the corner near the foot of his bed, shadows gather into a mass of darkness, almost like the figure of a man, but larger. In his state, half between dream and waking still, Jean Valjean remains silent, even as an old dread begins to creep across his skin. 

The darkness moves, rises, stands above him. His body tells him to flee, his mind tells him to wait for this new nightmare to pass. But his soul – his soul is too weary to care. Nightmare or not, what does it matter?

Only his body, this body that keeps stubbornly clinging to life, even as it refuses food and drink, feels the fear, the race of his heart, the sweat on his brow.

The shadow speaks: “So this is what you have come to.”

The voice seems familiar, and yet not. Did it ever sound like that in life? Was it ever this terrible, this ominously deep? Valjean cannot remember. He barely remembers anything at all, barely remembers the lashes, the chains, the harsh words. None of that matters now compared to the void, this final trek through the darkness. 

The shadow looms over him; he closes his eyes. If this is a dream, it will end. If not, either he is going mad, or he is finally waning, caught in some space where boundaries dissolve between the living and the dead. It would make sense; he is half dead already. But oh, never to see Cosette again…

“And to think,” that terrible voice says, “that you were once the strongest of men.”

Valjean’s body trembles. “Javert,” he whispers, hollowly. This is too vivid to be a dream. Or is it? He is no longer a trustworthy judge of what is real and what is not; apart from the moments in his poor oasis, the world has become but shadows to him. 

“So you remember. No more escapes for you now, Jean Valjean.”

This is true. He does not intend to flee; flight cannot grant him the one thing he longs for. Nothing matters anymore, not even this dark spirit come to haunt him. 

He licks his dry lips. He cannot remember when he last spoke. “Why are you here?” 

A long and dreadful silence, long enough for him to wonder if the spirit himself does not know. 

Then: “I failed in my duty,” the voice says at last. “I let you slip out of my grasp. You had ruined me, so I ruined myself. I see now that you are ruining yourself too.” A noise, almost like a huff of scornful laughter. “Perhaps I should have arrested you, after all.”

“Why not,” Valjean says. The fear is subsiding, the weary indifference reclaiming its place. “I would have let you.” 

A snort, almost flustered. He understands that this is the crucial point Javert cannot grasp, not even in death. Perhaps it is not so strange. Did Javert ever love? He doubts it. A man who has loved would not fail to grasp the overwhelming emptiness love leaves in its wake when it is withdrawn, when a gulf springs up between oneself and one’s beloved. Being arrested and sent back to the bagne pales in comparison to this void. 

There are no oases in Toulon. His death would have been faster.

“Ah,” says the spirit, as if reading his thoughts. “The convict who fancies himself a man of religion, Monsieur Madeleine with his prayers and his alms! Too pious for self-slaughter, so he leaves the bread uneaten on the table, the milk undrunk in its jug. He wastes away in a damp room and thinks he is not dishonouring his God. Yes, it is a fine state of affairs.” 

At this, he opens his eyes at last. The shadow has retreated into a corner, he can no longer make it out. But the voice lingers, the warning foreboding in his ears:

“You are closer to death than you think. Eat now, or you may never see the girl again.”

*

When he wakes next, he finds that the dread is back; whether brought on by the ghost’s presence or its warning, he cannot tell. 

He forces down the food left on the table. There is some water left; he washes as best he can. Eventually, he makes his way out, where the sunlight stings his eyes. He is halfway to her house before he gives up. 

*

That night, as he is half asleep, the spirit returns, a tall shadow hovering over him, its traits indecipherable for the few moments he struggles to keep his eyes open. A heavy weight, like that of a large hand, comes to rest on his shoulder; the touch is icy through the fabric of his shirt. 

“The strongest man in the bagne,” the voice mutters as the hand slides down his arm. “And now, would you be able to scale its walls? To lift a cart? To fight me if I wanted to hold you down?” 

The taunts demand no answer; his weakened state is obvious to them both. He remains silent as the ghostly hand glides back across his shoulder, settling on his chest. The touch is strange; again his heart races in fear, though he cannot tell what exactly it is that he fears. 

“A convict’s body,” the voice murmurs, “and a mayor’s mind. That is what broke me. There are too many contradictions in you, Jean Valjean. If I had come to revere you as the mayor deserved, I should have condemned myself thrice over for the baseness of my thoughts. Can a man be forgiven for his unnatural lusts? I should prefer not to be. I cannot stand your forgiveness; I cannot stand that you are in the position to forgive me.” 

The words hold little meaning to him, but then again, he no more understands Javert than Javert has ever understood him. He keeps still as the hand on his chest slips under his shirt, even as his own breath quickens at the icy weight on his skin. 

A touch like that of an ethereal thumb brushing across his left nipple; a hiss that might be his own or the spirit’s. He keeps his eyes closed, not daring another attempt to look – what if he were to meet Javert’s burning gaze, a tenfold more fearsome than it ever was in life? For now, stripped of earthly obligations, duty and decorum, there is nothing to hold back or conceal Javert’s true nature, whatever it is. Perhaps this – the hand gliding down towards his belly, the harsh breathing in his ear – was what Javert wanted all along. 

And now, when nothing matters anymore, perhaps it is time for Javert to have what he wants. 

Before, in another time, another life, the notion would have shocked him, but Jean Valjean is beyond shock. Eyes still closed, he entertains the thought and finds it tolerable, almost tempting. To give in to the spirit’s glacial touch – to give himself over to that ghostly embrace, to let Javert grasp him and possess him and fill him with the icy blankness of the dead until everything else is drowned out – is that not just another way towards oblivion? Perhaps that is the spirit’s purpose, to drain whatever is left of his body’s fears, to pluck what remains of his instincts and prepare him for the final surrender.

He wants that oblivion – he is so tired. But Cosette…

The hand stops its explorations, as if reluctantly, just before reaching his groin. For long minutes, nothing happens. 

“Tomorrow you will eat again,” the voice says at length, with all the brusque command of a prison guard. “And the day after. Or you will die before you see her again. If that is what you wish for, so be it, but know this: your death will be but another suicide.”

A harsh, echoing laugh in the darkness. “We are more alike than you think.”

*

Again, he obeys the spirit, much as food revolts him. And on the third day, he is rewarded.

At first, his joy is so great he can hardly believe it. Marius Pontmercy has forgiven him – Marius Pontmercy will no longer stand in his way, Marius Pontmercy will not bar him from entering the oasis. And Cosette, more loving, more caring than ever! In the initial euphoria of tears and laughter and promises, his tiny room lit by the presence of these dear children, he agrees to everything – he will come live with them, yes; be their father, yes; walk in their garden every day, a thousand times yes. He will agree to everything, now that God has granted him this moment, this last respite before death.

It is not until late that night, when he lies in a bed in M. Gillenormand’s house, bathed and clothed and fed, that he understands what has come to pass.

He is not too frail to move, and so he is nowhere near death yet. The ghost’s intervention has pulled him back from the brink – but to what fate? What will become of him, here in the home of a man who hates convicts, who never would have permitted his grandson to marry Cosette if he had known the truth of her past? 

And as he lies there sleepless in the dark, sick with new anxiety now that the initial joyful madness has worn off, he hears it again: the low, harsh laugh of a faithful shadow, relentless even in death.

“This is what your lies have led to,” the voice mutters somewhere to his left. He cannot bring himself to look it in the eye. “A life among people who will never accept you as one of them, who will not care about your saintliness or your noble soul. Beware, Jean Valjean. You cannot break this world so easily as you broke me.” 

He understands it then. This is Javert’s revenge, or perhaps Javert is but a mere instrument of Fate, making him suffer the consequences of his actions. He has been snatched back from the brink of death, but to what purpose? To taint Cosette’s home with his presence, to disgrace her in the eyes of society? 

A sob escapes him at the thought. The spirit draws nearer, as if attracted by the sound. A cold finger reaches out to trace the line of his cheek, stopping at his lips. 

“Now we are almost even,” the ghost murmurs. “You saved my life and ruined me that way. I have saved your life; let us see what will come of it.” 

The hand continues downwards, as it has before. This time, it only pauses for a moment before reaching between his legs, curling around his flesh. He gives a jolt at the icy touch, and the spirit laughs again, low and satisfied. 

And then, so close that he can almost feel the chill breath against his ear, repeating its own words: “There is no escape for you.”


End file.
